Arsenal are the frontrunners in the race to sign Lille winger Nicolas Pepe after becoming the fifth club to agree a fee of €80 million to be paid over five years with the Ligue 1 side, according to ESPN FC sources.

Sources have told ESPN FC that, as well as Arsenal, Napoli, Inter Milan, Paris Saint-Germain and Atletico Madrid have an agreement on the fee with Lille for Pepe.

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While the 24-year-old has not agreed personal terms with any of those clubs, sources have told ESPN FC Arsenal are the player's preferred option.

Arsenal have also been linked with a move for Pepe's Ivory Coast teammate Wilfried Zaha but were unable to agree a deal with Crystal Palace, who were holding out for a deal worth £70m.

Unai Emery has so far welcomed two new additions for next season in Brazilian teenager Gabriel Martinelli and Dani Ceballos, who joined on loan from Real Madrid.

Arsenal have also signed William Saliba from Saint Etienne, but have sent the defender back to the Ligue 1 on loan.

Pepe joined Lille from Angers in 2017 and enjoyed an impressive first campaign with the Ligue 1 side as he hit 13 goals, despite battling relegation for much of the season.

However, he exploded into life in the his second term as his 22 goals in Ligue 1 helped Lille finish runners-up to PSG.

Meg Lanning channeled the annoyance of not converting starts in the Ashes into a record-breaking innings at Chelmsford, as Australia secured the multi-points series in overwhelming style. Yet, she was still targeting further improvement from her impressive team.

Lanning plundered 133 not out off 63 balls, beating her own record of 126 - which had been jointly held with Sterre Kalis of Netherlands for a month - for the highest individual innings in women's T20Is. It is a mark of the standards set by Lanning that her previous scores in the Ashes (16, 18, 69, 57 and 21) had been below expectation and she showed no mercy on the England bowlers, taking them for 17 fours and seven sixes.

She added a second-wicket stand of 134 in 12 overs with Beth Mooney (55 off 33 balls) and 66 in five overs with Ash Gardner as Australia piled up 226 for 3 which England got nowhere near threatening. This gave them a 10-2 lead in the series with two T20Is remaining.

"I hit the ball today as well as I have for a long time, that's what T20 does, you are out there and swing the bat a little bit and hope for the best at times," Lanning said. "To be honest myself and Beth, we just wanted to play good cricket shots and we got good reward for that. It was a really good batting deck.

"I feel like I've been hitting the ball reasonably well without being able to play really freely and felt if I was able to stick at it long enough it would happen. Was nice to be able to cash in, some days you are on and you have to make the most of it."

"[I have been] a bit frustrated, I have big expectations and want to contribute all the time. I felt like I was getting starts but kept getting out and that was annoying me a fair bit. So when I got going today I was keen to keep putting the foot down and take the opportunity because it doesn't come along very often."

Australia retained the Ashes with the drawn Test in Taunton and, unlike the previous series in Australia, have ensured against England fighting back to level the points in the T20s. Following their 3-0 success in the ODIs, and a performance in the Test where they never looked like losing, going unbeaten through the series is now very much on the cards.

"It's massive, it's what we came here to do - win the Ashes outright. To do it early on is a nice bonus," Lanning said. "We've played some good cricket throughout, it has been closer than the scoreboard suggests but we've been able to win the big moments in game. We are keen to keep going, we don't want to give them any sniff

"We strive for perfection, we don't get there, but we want to get as close as we can. We can probably improve a little in the field which is a good thing for our group because we want to keep getting better. I think that's why we've been able to have some success over the last 18 months, that drive, and everyone in the group has that."

Jofra Archer has revealed he was in "excruciating" pain as he battled a side injury during the second half of the World Cup. The tournament finished with him bowling the dramatic tied Super Over that enabled England to win the title on boundary countback.

Archer sustained the injury against Afghanistan, England's fifth match of the tournament, and needed constant painkillers to make it through the rest of the competition. The management may have had an eye on resting him at some stage during the group matches, but England's mid-tournament wobble, where they lost consecutive matches against Sri Lanka and Australia, left them in virtually a must-win scenario against India and New Zealand.

Archer then managed to produce one of his most impressive performances in the semi-final against Australia, trapping Aaron Finch lbw with his first ball to set the tone for a dominant victory, before his scarcely believable role in the final. He finished with 20 wickets in the tournament, a record for an England bowler in World Cups.

"It was pretty excruciating," he told BBC Sussex about the side injury. "I'm fortunate it's settled quickly. It was pretty bad. I couldn't do it without painkillers, which was from the Afghanistan game onwards. I couldn't get a week's rest in during the tournament because of how close the games were. I only ever needed a week to 10 days."

Archer was given time off after the World Cup to recover physically and mentally from a dramatic start to his international career which only began in May. He didn't take part in England's pre-Test training camp and was allowed to head back home to Barbados for a holiday. He returned to action for Sussex in the T20 Blast on Friday evening and took 2 for 21 in another tied match ahead of England naming their squad on Saturday for the first Test against Australia.

After the World Cup there had been a suggestion he may be held back until the second Ashes Test at Lord's and given the strength of England's pace-bowling resources that could remain an option but Archer, who has 131 first-class wickets at 23.44, is desperate to get his hands on the red ball.

"I'm just ready to go out there and show the guys what I can do with a red ball," he said. "I think my red-ball record is better than my white-ball record, so I just can't wait to get the opportunity."

Stuart Broad and Chris Woakes combined to bowl England to victory against Ireland at Lord's, demolishing the visitors' second innings for 38, while Sam Curran and debutant Olly Stone took three wickets apiece in the first innings. James Anderson missed the match as he recovers from a calf strain but there is confidence he will be available for Edgbaston.

Seventeen months ago, Cameron Bancroft sat in a room at the WACA Ground, flanked by the state's chief executive Christina Matthews, and conveyed his greatest disappointment about the Newlands ball tampering scandal in which he had been a pivotal figure.

"Through the last few days, sitting in my own company, the thing that breaks my heart the most is that I have given up my spot in the team for somebody else for free," he said. "People know that I've worked so hard to be able to get to this stage in my career, and to know that I have just given somebody an opportunity for free is devastating for me."

In the many recriminations and deliberations that followed the scandal, there was little doubt that Bancroft had the hardest road back to regaining a place in the Australian team. For while Steven Smith and David Warner were acknowledged as world class talents, Bancroft was a batsman still making his way, struggling as much as thriving in his first eight matches against England and South Africa. Countless others had the chance to bar Bancroft from returning through their own performance.

Yet Bancroft never lost sight of his goal - keeping his baggy green cap in full view at home in Perth, then carrying it with him to a county stint with Durham. Through runs there, and then by wearing numerous blows to the body in making the unbeaten 93 on a fiendish Southampton pitch, Bancroft convinced the selectors he was worthy of a return, foiling the likes of Joe Burns, Kurtis Patterson, Peter Handscomb and Will Pucovski in the process. He's got his spot back, and has no intention of giving it away "for free" again.

"It's good motivation isn't it, to look at it and go 'yeah i'm playing cricket but there's something bigger I eventually want to be able to get back to'," Bancroft said of his cap. "I guess it was good motivation to keep working hard, keep training. yeah. whenever that happened, it was out of my control. it was just a bit of inspiration and motivation to keep my goals and keep focused.

"At home it's got its little spot that it sits in outside my bedroom. yeah I kept it there . It's something you're obviously very proud of it. it's a very prestigious item to have and you take good care of it because it means something to you. So that's kind of how I dealt with that and being able to see that is obviously really good to focus your goals and where you want to be going.

"Definitely times when I was challenged a lot. but like anything, you go through those moments the best you can. You learn a bit about what you need to do to keep moving forward, and just take it day by day really. If you ask me 18 months ago if I'd be sitting here, it was probably the last thing from my mind."

Ask Bancroft about Australian cricket culture since Newlands, and the response is instructive. He focuses not on fitting in around others, but on doing the right things in his own mind. Through the tribulations of the past year or so, including the loss of his contract with Durham for 2018, reinstated this year, Bancroft also learned to be somewhat less obsessive about the game. "One of the big lessons that I learnt last year was about being true to yourself," Bancroft said.

"There is no doubt that I wasn't as true to myself as I could have been at times. You learn from those mistakes that you make and you try and be better moving forward. At the end of the day, what you do and your actions is completely up to you. I made a mistake and I'll learn from it and move forward and get better.

"I think being serious about cricket is important but I think it's also about being able to realise the game is just a game of cricket. There's certainly other parts of your life that you can value, that are important too. I definitely connected with more of that last year and certainly opened up new avenues that I hadn't done before. They've brought a lot of enjoyment and happiness to my life, so for that it was a good experience and i'd like to think it's helped me enjoy cricket in a different way."

Those avenues included meditation and yoga, accompanied by running plenty of kilometres (about 35 a week) to maintain the fitness and strength that helped make Bancroft one of the most durable batsmen in the Australian system. All these things helped build resilience, not only to the ball hurled down at him, but the volleys of abuse he faced with Durham that will doubtless be multiplied during the heat of an Ashes series in England.

"Sure, there were times when people booed or what not, or ask you to sign pieces of sandpaper, stuff like that. But it doesn't faze me. I just get on with it," Bancroft said.

"It doesn't bother me too much. It is what it is. People will react how they want to react. Hopefully I can use it if people want to be like that, to give you energy to perform well. I can't control that. I guess the journey that I've been through over the last 18 months, you get exposed to things like that. I'll just deal with it and keep moving forward.

"I think how people want to feel about that and react, I guess, is really how they want to deal with that. For me it's just about playing good cricket. That's kind of where I'm at right now. That's definitely the thing that I can change and impact on moving forward, so that's certainly where my focus will be right now."

Dealing with a moving ball was something central to Bancroft's desire to return to Durham, and the lessons of the stint were writ large across his Southampton innings. Playing the ball late, judging the whereabouts of his off stump, leaning gently, head over the ball, into his drives, Bancroft combined physical toughness with the light touch required to avoid edges, pads and stumps being exposed to quality bowlers.

"I've worked on a lot of parts to my game, where my bat comes down, my back-foot play, how I move my feet, everything," Bancroft said. "You're just fine-tuning all those details to be a better cricketer. I've had a lot of time to be off the park and in the nets to do that and I guess each time you play is an opportunity to make that a part of your batting. That learning process is never ending and I'll keep working hard.

"Certainly up in Durham, dealing with sideways movement is part of batting up there. You don't always feel like you're 100% on top of the bowling or the game but you just do the best you can while feeling a little bit uncomfortable out there, not feeling in complete control. I think they were the conditions in Southampton and it was nice to be able to do that and I'm sure I learned a lot at Durham. There were times out there when i felt like 'I've seen this before, this is like batting at the Riverside a little bit. That's learning i guess.

"I'd certainly much rather get hit than get out at times, so yeah. It was just - there's certainly a bit of luck involved. No doubt about it on a pitch like that - and I had my fair share of luck, no doubt about it. You just stick to a game plan you think's going to be successful out there and as much as the ball was going up and down - frighteningly at times - the ball just nipping back and being able to attack your stumps, for me was far more dangerous than worrying about the ball was that bouncing a bit. But they're potentially conditions we could face at some point in the series and I guess you learn from the past and that helps you in the future."

As for his reunion with Smith and Warner, Bancroft agreed that all had taken paths that were lonely at times, on their way back to the national team, its pressures and rewards. "For all three of us, really, our journeys were all different," Bancroft said.

"We all fought battles that were very personal and very different. But I think understanding each other and what each other was going through was certainly something that happened. It's nice to be back in the side, it's nice to see Dave, it's nice to see all the boys, not just him. I guess as you connect closer together as a team, you build that good culture the Australian cricket team has been looking to improve."

Jofra Archer is in line to make his Test debut against Australia during the Ashes after being named in England's 14-man squad on the strength of his star turn for World Cup champion team.

Ben Stokes has been re-appointed England vice-captain, while Olly Stone was named in the squad as a fast-bowling option and Joe Denly was also included.

Archer, who revealed he had bowled in "excruciating" pain with a side strain throughout the second half of the World Cup, is in line to make his Test debut as part of a whirlwind summer which saw him play his first international match in May. He went on to take 20 World Cup wickets, a record for an England bowler in the tournament, which also saw him bowling the dramatic tied Super Over that enabled the hosts to win the title on boundary countback.

National Selector Ed Smith said while it was unusual to select a squad of 14 for a home Test, there were "compelling reasons" to do so in this case, given the demands of the recent World Cup campaign.

"Several bowlers are recovering from injuries or niggles," Smith said. "In addition, some bowlers who played in the World Cup are being closely monitored to assess their preparation for Test match cricket.

"The wider circumstances - a successful home World Cup campaign followed so quickly by a home Ashes series - are unprecedented. It feels sensible to select an expanded squad and leave a number of bowling options open for the final team selection."

Archer was involved in another tied match on the eve of England's Ashes squad announcement, taking 2 for 21 for Sussex against Surrey in the Vitality Blast on Friday night, his return to action after taking a short post-World Cup break.

Also returning to the squad after resting from England's one-off Test against Ireland are Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes. Jack Leach, who made 92 as nightwatchman against Ireland, missed out on an Ashes place but will train with the Test squad in the lead-up to the opening match, starting at Edgbaston on August 1.

James Anderson, who missed the Ireland Test as he continues his recovery from a calf injury was expected to be fit to face the Australians in the Ashes opener. As expected, Chris Woakes and Stuart Broad, who claimed six and four wickets respectively as England skittled Ireland for just 38 in their second innings to win by 143 runs at Lord's on Friday, were included in the Ashes squad, as was Sam Curran.

ECB Chairman Colin Graves approved Stokes' reappointment as England vice-captain, the role he lost during investigations into the fight outside a Bristol night club in 2017, over which Stokes was ultimately found not guilty of affray. He will resume the vice-captaincy from Buttler.

Denly was called up after making his Test debut on England's tour of West Indies in January but missing out on a World Cup place. Stone earned his place in the squad after taking three wickets on his Test debut against Ireland, having returned early from the tour of the Caribbean with a stress fracture in his back.

The squad will report for duty in Birmingham on Monday.

England squad: Joe Root (capt), Moeen Ali, Jimmy Anderson, Jofra Archer, Jonny Bairstow, Stuart Broad, Rory Burns, Jos Buttler, Sam Curran, Joe Denly, Jason Roy, Ben Stokes, Olly Stone, Chris Woakes.

The International Cricket Council has come out in support of umpire Kumar Dharmasena for his controversial awarding of six overthrows, instead of five, to England in the World Cup final on July 14 at Lord's. In their first public statement of the incident, the governing body insisted the 'right process' was followed.

The overthrow, which allowed England to resuscitate the chase from what had seemed a very difficult positions a ball earlier - when they needed nine off three deliveries - resulted in six runs after the balls skimmed off Ben Stokes' bat to the third man boundary after he had dived to complete his second run.

Dharmasena said the decision was a collective one as he had consulted his on-field partner Marais Erasmus, a conversation that was audible to rest of the match officials.

"They (on-field umpires) had to make a judgement call on the day as to whether the batsmen had crossed when the throw was released," ICC's General Manager of cricket Geoff Allardice told ESPNcricinfo in a wide-ranging interview*. "After everything that went on during that delivery, they got together over their comms system and made their decision. They certainly followed the right process when making the decision."

While there is no time limit for match officials to ascertain their decisions, Allardice said the playing conditions did not allow the third umpire or match referee, both of whom had access to the TV, to intervene.

"They were aware of the law when they made the judgment about whether the batsmen had crossed or not at the time," he said. "The playing conditions don't allow them to refer to such a decision to a third umpire. The match referee cannot intervene when the umpires on the field have to make a judgement call like that."

He also said the entire final would be "considered" by the ICC's Cricket Committee, led by former India captain Anil Kumble. However, the committee is not scheduled to meet until the first quarter of 2020.

Allardice also emphatically stated the importance of having a winner, when asked if there were questions raised about a shared World Cup, at the ICC Annual Conference in London last week.

"The consistent view has been that the World Cup final needs a winner and a Super Over was in the playing conditions to decide a tied Final in each of the last three World Cups (2011, 2015 and 2019)."

Countdown clock to combat slow over-rates

The Cricket Committee has also given the not to a stop clock to combat slow over-rates in limited-overs cricket. Allardice said this will be trialled over the next nine months in select matches to judge its effectiveness.

"In a T20 innings, the clock would start at 85 minutes when the first ball is bowled, and countdown to zero. The aim is that players, umpires and fans will know that when the clock gets to zero the bowling team should have started the last over. If there is a delay or interruption in the match due to an injury or a DRS review then the umpire will push a button on a timer that adds time back onto clock."

*The full interview with Geoff Allardice will be published on July 28*

SEOUL, South Korea -- A balcony inside a nightclub in South Korea collapsed on Saturday, killing two people and injuring 16, including American and other athletes at the world swimming championships, officials said.

Hundreds were at the nightclub in the southern city of Gwangju when the collapse occurred next to the athletes' village.

Two South Korean men died while 16 others were injured, police said. According to a police account, the injured include 10 foreigners, eight of them athletes who were in Gwangju to participate in the swimming championships.

Among the athletes were three Americans, two New Zealanders, one Dutch, one Italian and one Brazilian, a police officer said, requesting anonymity ahead of an official announcement. He said most had minor injuries but an American female water polo player required surgery. The other two Americans _ a man and a woman _ are also water polo players, the police officer said.

Police said they detained one of the nightclub's co-owners and summoned three other club officials to investigate whether the collapsed balcony was an unauthorized structure.

``This is an awful tragedy,'' said Christopher Ramsey, CEO of USA Water Polo. ``Players from our men's and women's teams were celebrating the women's world championship victory when the collapse occurred at a public club. Our hearts go out to the victims of the crash and their families.''

Among the Americans, Kaleigh Gilchrist of Newport Beach, California, suffered a deep left leg laceration and underwent surgery at a hospital in Gwangju, said Greg Mescall, director of communications for USA Water Polo. He said Paige Hauschild of Santa Barbara, California, suffered lacerations on the right arm and Johnny Hooper of Los Angeles on the left hand that required stitches.

Ben Hallock of Westlake Village, California, suffered minor scrapes on the legs, he said.

The anti-disaster agency said the injured also included two Uzbekistan exchange students. None of the injured was in life-threatening condition.

Members of the New Zealand men's and women's water polo teams were also at the nightclub. The men's captain, Matt Small, described a chaotic scene and said that his team tried to help the injured.

``(It was) business as usual and then it literally collapsed beneath our feet,'' Small said, speaking to New Zealand Radio Sport by phone. ``None of the boys are hurt or injured though _ so that's good. But everyone's a bit shaken up at the moment.''

``We did what we could but we couldn't really do too much. Some of them were pretty dire cases,'' he said. ``We were more so just concerned about everyone else, we were trying to do a number count and make sure all the boys were there.''

The local organizing committee for the world swimming championships said that eight of the athletes attending the event were injured, most slightly.

A committee statement said seven of them had already returned to the athletes' village after minor treatments at hospitals. It said one player had a leg lacerated and was to receive stitches at a hospital.

The organizing committee said it won't disclose other personal information about the athletes at the request of their national teams.

FINA, international swimming's governing body, said in a statement that it was ``carefully monitoring the situation and will activate all measures to ensure health care and assistance is provided whenever necessary.''

RENTON, Wash. -- In a move that seemed increasingly likely in recent days, the Seattle Seahawks and All-Pro linebacker Bobby Wagner have agreed to terms on a three-year extension worth $54 million with $40.2 million guaranteed, a source confirmed to ESPN's Adam Schefter.

The deal, which Wagner negotiated himself, makes him the NFL's highest-paid inside linebacker at $18 million per season. As expected, that tops the $17 million average that C.J. Mosley got on the free-agent contract he signed with the New York Jets in March, and it represents a massive jump from the $10.75 million in new-money average from Wagner's 2015 extension.

Wagner was entering the final year of that deal, so his latest extension puts him under contract in Seattle through the 2022 season.

Bleacher Report was first to report the deal, which Seattle announced Friday night.

"We feel blessed that we were able to draft Bobby in 2012, keep him here on a second contract, and now to have him sign a third contract is a huge deal for us," Seahawks general manager John Schneider said in a statement. "Everyone in the whole building is excited, I'm sure his teammates are going to be very excited. He exemplifies everything that we're all about, his professionalism, intensity, the way he handles himself off the field.

"There's no doubt in my mind that he'll go down not only as one of the greatest Seahawks, but also as one of the greatest middle linebackers in NFL history. It's a major deal for our organization moving into the future."

Wagner, who turned 29 in June, has been on a Hall of Fame trajectory. He has made five consecutive Pro Bowls while being named a first-team All-Pro four times in that span. He has topped 100 tackles every season since Seattle drafted him in the second round in 2012, and according to ESPN charting, he leads the NFL in tackles over the past five seasons with 656. Wagner was fourth in tackles last season with 138 while missing only one.

It was thus a virtual certainty that whatever extension Wagner signed would have a higher average than that of Mosley, who has made the Pro Bowl in four of his five seasons but has yet to make All-Pro.

"I'm really excited to have this done, excited that I get to be a Seahawk for a long, long time," Wagner said in a statement. "Like I've always said, I want to play my entire career here, and I feel like today is a step toward that. It feels amazing being here. I've watched people stay, I've watched people go, and to have the trust from the organization to continue to let me lead this team, lead the defense, it's a great feeling. I'm excited to get back to work."

In an Instagram post, Wagner challenged his followers to "dream big and believe in yourself!"

View this post on Instagram

Excited to continue my career with the best organization! It was a great process I learned a lot.. and I challenge everyone to dream big and believe in yourself! God is Great! I'm blessed.. Time to get back to work #GoHawks

A post shared by Bobby Wagner (@bwagz) on Jul 26, 2019 at 9:51pm PDT

Coach Pete Carroll expressed optimism back in March that a Wagner deal would get done, right after Mosley's deal pushed the presumptive price tag to north of $17 million per season.

"He's never done anything that doesn't represent class and character and leadership," Carroll said of Wagner, a three-time defensive captain, on Thursday. "I'm not even talking about his performance, just the person that he has always been, and he will continue to be that for us. That's just the guy that we know, and we love, and we are happy to have on our club."

Wagner's $18 million average ties him with Tre Flowers of the Detroit Lions for the sixth-highest-paid defender in the NFL, according to Spotrac.

Wagner was previously represented by Athletes First but joined former Seahawks teammates Russell Okung and Richard Sherman in deciding to represent himself. That meant navigating negotiations with general manager John Schneider and VP of football administration Matt Thomas without the buffer and expertise of an agent.

Wagner earlier in the offseason downplayed the difficulty in having direct and blunt conversations with the front office that an agent would otherwise filter when relaying to a player.

"At the end of the day, me representing myself shouldn't be a big deal," Wagner said in May. "They should look at it as any other deal. I think it's a lot of people worried about them saying things and me being able to take criticism. That's part of the game. You've got to be able to take criticism. At the end of the day, you want the person to say something straight to your face how they feel versus to somebody else. I don't need a third party."

Sherman had a celebratory reaction to news of Wagner's deal that also took a shot at the critics of players who represent themselves.

Hell yea!!! Get ya money!!! Who was his agent? https://t.co/EhtaBb0QC3

— Richard Sherman (@RSherman_25) July 27, 2019

The Seahawks and Wagner had been working toward a deal for a while, and there was a belief within the organization that it would get done early in training camp. Fellow linebacker K.J. Wright, Wagner's closest friend on the team, shared the same belief when he said after the first practice of camp on Thursday that it was his impression that a deal was almost done.

In keeping with the approach he took throughout OTAs and minicamp, Wagner showed up for training camp and attended meetings but was a spectator during practice. Curiously, he watched on Thursday with his sweatshirt turned inside out, showing no team branding. He was back in his No. 54 jersey and Seahawks helmet Friday, even though he again sat out.

Wright was asked Thursday if he sensed any frustration on Wagner's part that a deal hadn't been reached.

"No, I don't think he's frustrated," Wright said. "I believe that something will happen and I'm pretty positive. The organization knows what he means to us and it's kind of, like I said back in OTAs, a no-brainer to get it done."

Said quarterback Russell Wilson on Friday: "He deserves to be the highest-paid linebacker. There's nobody better than him in the game."

Wagner's extension is another major move in what has been an eventful offseason for the Seahawks, who let All-Pro safety Earl Thomas leave in free agency, traded star pass-rusher Frank Clark to Kansas City and then made Wilson the highest-paid player in league history with a four-year, $140 million extension. Even with Wilson's megadeal, the Seahawks had more than enough cap space to extend Wagner after trading Clark and clearing his $17.128 million in scheduled salary.

"Those are two pillars that we want to build a young football team around," Schneider said of Wilson and Wagner. "That was a primary goal for us as we entered the offseason, and knowing that we're going to be a young football team with great leadership on both sides of the ball -- Bobby, K.J. and Russ -- that's big for us."

NEW YORK -- Mets All-Star Jeff McNeil was working the phone Friday, hoping to acquire a promising, four-pawed prospect with the trade deadline looming.

A ruff negotiation, indeed.

McNeil video chatted with his wife, Tatiana, from Citi Field prior to a game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, pleading to take home a puppy brought to the ballpark by the North Shore Animal League. With his spouse uncertain, McNeil clubbed a three-run homer in New York's 6-3 win over Pittsburgh -- just the leverage he thinks he needed.

"Hitting a home run after holding a puppy, I think that gives me a little bargaining chip," McNeil said. "My wife wants more homers, then we have to get a puppy."

McNeil, who leads the majors with a .340 batting average, said the couple planned to visit the puppy together Saturday and then make a decision.

He and his teammates took turns greeting the rescued dogs, who were held in a pen outside the home dugout during batting practice. McNeil fell hard for a pup with a fuzzy blond coat and a dark face.

The canine was the first thing on his mind after he hit his 10th homer of the season a few hours later.

"I got in the dugout and said I was getting a puppy," McNeil said.

CHICAGO -- The slugging Minnesota Twins set another record Friday night.

The players are enjoying the show.

Nelson Cruz went deep for the seventh time during a five-game homer streak, and the Twins became the fastest team to 200 homers in major league history during a 6-2 victory over the Chicago White Sox.

Max Kepler hit a three-run drive in the second inning for the landmark homer in Minnesota's 103rd game of the season. The previous mark was 122 games by the Texas Rangers in 2005.

"I just saw it flash across the screen," Kepler said of the record. "It's pretty cool. It's special."

Kepler, though, isn't surprised.

"I looked at the lineup before spring training started and I was like, 'This team can do damage,'" he said. "It was just a matter of if we stay healthy and have the right mindset, and we've done that so far.

"It's been pretty fun to watch."

The American League Central-leading Twins hit five homers in Thursday night's 10-3 victory over the White Sox, becoming the first team in major league history with nine five-homer games in a season.

Cruz finished with three hits and two RBIs, including a solo drive in the seventh for his 26th homer. He went deep three times in the series opener.

"Yeah, he's swinging the bat OK," Minnesota manager Rocco Baldelli said. "I don't know how much more locked in a person can get. This is major league baseball and pitchers are good and they have good stuff and they know what they're doing, too, so to watch a guy get on that kind of roll and help contribute -- and sometimes even carry the team -- is beautiful."

Minnesota right-hander Michael Pineda (7-5) allowed two runs and six hits in seven innings. He has a 2.87 ERA in his past eight starts.

Adam Engel homered for the slumping White Sox, who have dropped four straight and 12 of 15.

Chicago starter Dylan Cease (1-3) permitted five runs and seven hits in five innings in his third straight loss since winning his major league debut July 3. He struck out four and walked three.

Cease, the team's top pitching prospect, yielded each of his runs in the second inning. In his previous outing Sunday at Tampa Bay, he gave up all four of his runs in the second as well.

"If anybody is worried about Dylan Cease, I wouldn't be; he's going to be OK," White Sox manager Rick Renteria said. "He'll get through these little hiccups.

"Some of the things that we talk about when you're bringing up young players to the big leagues that have talent, you hope the transition is flawless, but some of them are going to get some hiccups and they're going to continue to grow and get better."

With one out in the second on Friday, Luis Arraez and Marwin Gonzalez singled and Jason Castro walked to load the bases. Byron Buxton drove in the first run with a sacrifice fly to shallow left.

Kepler followed with his 27th homer, a long drive to right on a 3-2 breaking ball. Jorge Polanco then doubled and scored on Cruz's base hit.

Engel connected for a two-run shot in the third, but Cruz's 432-foot drive to left-center off Ross Detwiler made it 6-2.

BACK ON TRACK

Minnesota's starters have pitched seven innings in each of the first two games of the series, providing a big boost for an overworked bullpen coming off a wild three-game series against the New York Yankees.

TRAINER'S ROOM

White Sox: OF Eloy Jimenez (right ulnar nerve contusion) went through a full workout, including batting practice -- in the cage and on the field -- and throwing to bases from the outfield. If he comes through the workout with no issues, he could be activated from the 10-day injured list early next week. "I'll talk to the trainers at the end of the day to see if he's felt any residual effects," Renteria said. "We'll have a better idea tomorrow."

UP NEXT

White Sox right-hander Ivan Nova (5-9, 5.49 ERA) faces Twins left-hander Martin Perez (8-3, 4.37 ERA) on Saturday night in the third of four in the series. Nova is coming off a complete-game victory against Miami. Perez allowed five runs in four innings for a no-decision Monday against the New York Yankees.